Jeffrey A. Citron (born September 5th, 1970) is chairman of the board and former
CEO
A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization.
CEOs find roles in variou ...
of
Vonage
Vonage Holdings Corp. (, or simply Vonage) is an American cloud communications provider operating as a subsidiary of Ericsson. Headquartered in Holmdel Township, New Jersey, the organization was founded in 1998 as Min-X as a provider of resident ...
, a
VOIP
Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also known as IP telephony, is a set of technologies used primarily for voice communication sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. VoIP enables voice calls to be transmitted as ...
phone company. He was previously affiliated with Datek Online, an online stock brokerage.
Early life
Citron was raised in
Staten Island
Staten Island ( ) is the southernmost of the boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Richmond County and situated at the southernmost point of New York (state), New York. The borough is separated from the ad ...
, the son of Howard Citron. In the early 1990s, his father pleaded guilty to
falsifying business records
Falsifying business records is a criminal offense in the laws of several U.S. states.
New York State Elements and punishment
Under New York State law, falsifying business records in the second degree is a class A misdemeanor, while falsifying bus ...
at a small New York securities firm that supported a stock-rigging scam costing investors millions.
Career
Citron started working at Datek Securities as an office clerk in 1988, when he was 17 and had just graduated from high school. With programmer Joshua Levine, he found ways to automate securities trading and exploit weaknesses in the
Nasdaq
The Nasdaq Stock Market (; National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the U.S. by volume, and ranked second on the list ...
Small Order Execution System
The Small-Order Execution System (SOES) was a system to facilitate clearing trades of low volume on Nasdaq. It has been phased out and is no longer necessary.
History
SOES was first introduced in December 1984 for 25 stocks to provide automatic o ...
, and founded several companies associated with Datek including Smith Wall Associates and, in 1992, The Island ECN, an electronic stock exchange that was bought by
Instinet
Instinet Incorporated is an institutional, agency-model broker that also serves as the independent equity trading arm of its parent, Nomura Group. It executes trades for asset management firms, hedge funds, insurance companies, mutual funds a ...
in 2002. From 1998 to 1999, when he left both companies, he was chairman and CEO of Datek, which was acquired by
TD Ameritrade
TD Ameritrade Holding Corporation was a stockbroker that offered an electronic trading platform for the trade of financial assets. The company was founded in 1975 as First Omaha Securities. In 2006, it acquired the United States operations of TD ...
in 2002; Citron got $500 million for his stake.
In 2000 he was invited to join Min-X, an electronic exchange for trading phone minutes, and provided much of the funding for relaunching it as the VOIP company Vonage. In January 2001 he became chairman of the board, and was also its CEO until early 2006 and on an interim basis from mid-2007 to mid-2008, and chief strategist from 2006 to 2008.
Citron and his wife, Suzanne, started New World Aviation in 1997. Citron was also managing partner of KEC Holdings, and in 2008 he opened a fish restaurant in
Manhattan
Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...
, Fishtail, with David Burke.
Citron resigned from Datek amid an investigation by the United States
Securities and Exchange Commission
The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government, created in the aftermath of the Wall Street crash of 1929. Its primary purpose is to enforce laws against market m ...
(SEC) into possible
securities fraud
Securities fraud, also known as stock fraud and investment fraud, is a deceptive practice in the stock or commodities markets that induces investors to make purchase or sale decisions on the basis of false information.went public in 2006.
Charles Lafitte Foundation
In 1999, Citron and his wife founded the Charles Lafitte Foundation, named after their labrador retriever; it makes donations in the fields of medicine, the arts, education, and advocacy for children.